


The Power Behind the Throne

by mariachiMushroom



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, Choking, Clothing Kink, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Masturbation, Orgasm Denial, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-02 18:17:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8677984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariachiMushroom/pseuds/mariachiMushroom
Summary: An account of the brief reign of Wilson P. Higgsbury upon the Nightmare Throne, and his subsequent corruption.Edit: Now with 100% less rape!





	1. The Night Monster

Summary: An account of the brief reign of Wilson P. Higgsbury upon the Nightmare Throne, and his subsequent corruption.

(22.5 hours, 155 pwph)

What I describe now is the true and accurate account of my brief reign on the Nightmare Throne, and the torments I suffered in that position. Of my prior transportation to a strange world by the demon Maxwell, my subsequent survival, and my quest to the throne room, I skip over, as the details have been much described elsewhere. It may puzzle the reader that I choose to relate such a period instead, one which they might suppose to be a time of extreme boredom, but I assure you that my story contains details of a vital nature to those who may ascend to the throne after me. Women, children, and those of a delicate constitution are advised to stop reading now, for my tale include graphic scenes of a sexual nature, which I include for accuracy and not for sensationalist appeal.

After I had traveled to the end of the board and seen Maxwell bound to the Nightmare Throne, I took pity on him, and unlocked his shackles. He gave a great cry of joy and sprung to his feet, whereupon his cry turned to despair as he crumbled to dust before my very eyes. I was not left long puzzling this strange occurrence, as shadowy hands erupted from the ground and bound me to the same throne.

There I sat for some unknowable amount of time. At first, I struggled vigorously against my bonds, but my movement was restricted by shadowy ropes that would wrap around my arms and body should I attempt to quit my position. It was a most devilish form of captivity, for I could move my arms freely, contort in any position so long as I remained upon the throne, but as soon as I attempted to leave, my bonds would appear.

I soon gave up trying to leave the throne, and set my formidable intellect to finding some way to occupy my time. If I had a source of ink, I could at least document my strange journey. I bit my lip until it bled, and began writing with the blood on the back of the throne. However, I was only able to write a single letter before the flow of blood ceased. I ran my tongue against the wound only to find it had sealed, without even a lingering soreness, as if the injury had never occurred at all. It was then that I remembered how my initial violence against Maxwell was thwarted by a bolt of lightning shattering the weapon in my hand. The Nightmare Throne provides a form of immortality to its captive, healing all wounds at the expense of freedom. 

Undeterred, I continued chronicling my journey, biting my on occasion lip to refresh my inkwell. However, the thickness of my finger and the lack of writing space limited my story to only a few sentences. These I labored over mightily, for what kind of epitaph would a man write for himself? I cycled between writing a word, then being displeased with my marks and rubbing them out. I was never the best writer, achieving only middling marks on my papers, and this process sorely tried my patience.

After I had written the bare details of my life, I sat down and thought, again unoccupied. I attempted to sleep away the eons, but I was unable to sleep. My stomach was also uncharacteristically quiet, neither full nor empty. Time dragged on, an eternity of mind numbing boredom.

As I sat there, a flicker of motion caught my attention. My head jerked up, and my eyes darted around, for living in the wilderness had trained me to expect an attack at any moment. Was it the hounds? Certainly I would have heard them long before I saw them. Then, my worst fears were realized. Two by two, the lights went out.

A chill ran through my body. I was trapped, helpless, with nothing to burn and no other light source. The monster which lurked in the dark would find me easy prey, and with the regenerative capabilities of the throne, I could be tortured forever, until I went mad with pain. I waited, petrified with fear, as the last two lights went out.

I expected my vision to go completely black, to hear the violent hissing that always accompanied the approach of the night monster. Yet somehow, I was able to see in the absence of any light, a physical impossibility. As the afterimages of the torches faded from the eyes, I became aware of a feminine form standing in front of me.

A woman! Tall, statuesque, mysterious, radiant. Her hair danced upon her head like a campfire, and her face had a soft and pleasant character, with wide eyes and soft lips. Tucked into her hair was a red rose. A gown, made out of some dark material with no visible seams, hugged her body and accentuated the curve of her hips. She carried with her the scent of roses, and her clothes were fresh and unmarked by the scars of the world above. She gazed at me with curiosity, touched perhaps by a twinge of pity.

Where did she come from? How did she survive the world above? Was she another pawn in Maxwell’s game? Each question fought to be spoken but in the end, only the most basic won.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I’m Charlie,” she said, in a soft, pleasant voice. 

“And I’m Wilson P. Higgsbury, gentleman scientist. It is a pleasure to meet you!” She seemed amused by that statement. “No, really, it’s true! I mean, I thought I was going to be alone forever, but now you’re here and we can talk about science and our sufferings at the hand of Maxwell!” I, for one, had stored many a vent about the indignities I had suffered in my struggle for survival, and according to my—admittedly poor—understanding of human relationships, much bonding was to be had in the exchange of mutual complaints. At the mention of Maxwell, however, Charlie’s amusement vanished, her expression turning distant.

“Oh, Max,” she sighed, using a diminuative. It was then that I realized that Charlie might have had an altogether different experience with that demon. I had been seduced by the promise of forbidden knowledge, but perhaps she had been seduced by promises of an altogether different kind?

“Did that demon take advantage of you? Because I swear, I shall take my revenge on him if we should ever meet again.”

“No, not in the way you’re suggesting,” she said. “I worked for him, before. He was a magician, Maxwell the Great, and I was his stage assistant.”

“That must have been terrible.”

“He was different, back then. He wasn’t interested in hurting people. He just wanted an audience. For his show, he would summon shadows from this book, harmless, he said, a trick of the light. But I was noticing things, here and there, shadows in the corner of my eye that I always chalked up to rats, the feeling of being watched in the dark. Oh, I should have known something was up! But he’s blinding, in his own way. He has a way of convincing you everything will turn out for the best.” I nodded in agreement.

“So, how did you two end up here?” I asked.

“Maxwell lost control. On our last show of the season, he does the whole bit, chants from his book, a shadowy hand reaches out and spooks the audience, standard. But this time, the shadows don’t go away when they’re dismissed. Claws reached right out of the ground and grabbed us, dragging us to this world.”

“I should never have trusted Maxwell!” she continued, voice growing agitated. “Whenever I think about him, I just—” A strange transformation was taking place in Charlie’s form. Her hair rippled up into a fiery mane. She ripped at the air with a hand that had transformed into a dark claw, fingers sharp and pointed. A very familiar claw, the same one that crept from the edges of my camp fire and extinguished my precious light.

“You! You’re the night monster!” I accused. Charlie started up, alarmed. 

“No, I’m not a monster—” Charlie held up her hands in a gesture of placation, but her hands were still in the form of those cruel claws.

“Stay back! I have a match and I’m not afraid to use it!” I bluffed. Instead of flinching, Charlie snarled, her hair roaring into a bonfire. Between one blink and the next, the colors of her eyes inverted in an unnatural manner, whites becoming black. Before I could react, she snatched my hands up and pinned them to the back of the throne, rendering me helpless. She thrust her face into mine, her wild eyes piercing through my lies. If my bowels had not been completely empty, I would have voided myself. 

As suddenly as it arose, the malice drained out of Charlie. She blinked, and her eyes regained their usual coloration. Her eyes flicked down, and she realized the compromising position she was in, with her body pressed against mine as if we were lovers. She dropped my wrists and withdrew, a stream of apologies flowing from her mouth.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me—I get these urges—I hurt people—I should never have come here!” She turned, ready to retreat back into the dark.

“Wait!” I called out. “Please don’t go!” She hesitated. 

“You were right, I am a monster. I’ll only hurt you!” she cried.

“I don’t care! You can’t leave me alone, I’ll go mad!” An eternity of loneliness might have been one thing, but an eternity with the knowledge that other people exist? Unbearable. 

“Do you mean it?”

“Yes. I’m tougher than I look.” We stared at each other for a few moments, until I broke the silence with a cough.

“You had the rest of your story? If it wouldn’t disturb you too much to tell it.”

“Yes, well, obviously you know I was transformed into a hideous shadow monster bent on attacking any survivor who strayed from the light. I could tell you about Maxwell’s creations, but you’ve already experienced them first-hand.” I shuddered in agreement. “There isn’t too much to tell beyond that, other than that when I was roaming the world above as usual, who do I spy but Maxwell himself?”

“Wait,” I said, “Maxwell is still alive?”

“For now.” Her hair rustled like hungry snakes.

“But he turned into dust as soon as I freed him!”

“ _ They _ wouldn’t let him leave that easily. I knew then that someone else had taken his place. That’s why I came here, to pay my respects to the new king.” She side-eyed me. “You’re not quite what I would have expected though.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” My pride compelled me to ask.

“Well, you’re, ahh, shorter than I expected. And covered in mud.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t have time to tidy up before my coronation. I was busy, you know, not dying,” I’d survived five hells getting here, wasn’t that enough? Even “The Great” Maxwell himself had looked quite decrepit on the throne. 

“And just what have you been writing on the throne?” Charlie rubbed on the blood letters that I had so painfully composed.

“Leave that alone! That’s my life story you’re blotting out,” I complained.

“But you don’t have to go through such measures when you could just conjure ink and paper.”

“Conjure?”

“Oh, you’re not prepared at all, are you.” Charlie pinched her brow. “I suppose somebody ought to train you.”

“Train me in what?”

“How to be king, of course.” 

“But I don’t want to be the king!” 

“It’s your duty. We must have a king, otherwise the game will end and the board will crumble.” 

“You mean, if I leave the throne, the world will end?”

“Exactly.” This new information made my earlier attempts to escape seem rather foolish. If I was now the keystone of this world, then the shadows had every reason to keep me from leaving. My countenance must have betrayed my disappointment at being trapped forever, for Charlie reassured, “It’s not all bad. The king has vast power over the state of the world, enough to raise mountains and shape continents. In fact, I think it’s rather an enviable position.” She ran a hand lovingly over the back of the throne.

“If I really have no choice, then I suppose I’ll have to make the best of it,” I sighed.

“Wonderful!” Charlie clapped her hands together. “Then we’ll start from the basics: your appearance. You look like you were dragged through every bush on the way here.” Charlie spat on her hand and began smoothing down my hair, despite my protestations.

“Stop, it’s not going to work,” I sputtered, squirming under Charlie’s grip. “You can’t keep my hair down, not even with pomade.” The sooner Charlie learned to accept my hair’s unruliness as a law of nature, like gravity and the fashionability of hats, the better. As Charlie combed through my hair, she started backwards.

“There are things living in your hair!” she shrieked. I felt some chagrin at not warning her about my lice, but she deserved it for messing with my hair.

“It was the beefalo wool.” I said mournfully. 

“Well, I can’t allow vermin on the throne.” An ominous phrase, and when a wave of dark fire washed over Charlie’s hand, I felt sure she was going to purge both the vermin and myself. “Hold still, I’m not going to hurt you,” she said, in reaction to my cowering. A cool, tingling sensation washed over my scalp, followed by a series of pops as the lice exploded. Afterwards, she set to stripping the nits off each strand of hair. 

Her hands were gentle, but the memory of being flensed by her claws sent shudders of horror through me. I closed my eyes and spun a different scene using the stuff of my imagination. A bedroom, no, a boudoir suffused with the delicate perfume of rose. A crackling fire, and supper right around the corner. I took a deep breath and exhaled.

It had been ages since I had last felt the touch of another human, and I could not remember when I had last been been fussed over with such care. My childhood supplied me with memories of being dunked in lukewarm water, scrubbed until my flesh glowed red as a boiled lobster, and then rudely toweled and left to shiver in the fall air. This was heaven by comparison, and my heart swelled with gratitude. 

I made the mistake of cracking open my eyes, only to realize that Charlie’s bust was positioned right in front of me. If I was to lean forward, my face would be buried in her bubbies. Hastily, I closed my eyes, but the damage was done. As I pictured the pale soft globes hidden from me by only a layer of cloth, my prick pressed against the seam of my trousers. Doubtless, my bonds would not have prevented me from grabbing Charlie by the hips and drawn her body to mine, but I have always been shy around women. Plus, it would have been very rude. Instead, I discreetly moved my hands to cover my lap and thought of the most vile and disgusting images I could imagine: rotting meat, swamp water, Maxwell’s face. That did the trick, and I calmed down as Charlie was just finishing her inspection.

“Your head should be clean now,” she announced.

“Thank you,” I answered.

“But you might still have some lice hiding away in your clothing.”

“No, that won’t be necessary!” I said in panic. “Head lice and body lice are completely different species, one doesn’t imply the existence of the other!”

“But you need a new outfit anyway, something more regal.” I had a brief mental image of myself wearing a fur cape, wool stockings and slashed sleeves a-la-Tudor.

“My clothes are fine,” I said, scratching off a crusted stain. “And, unless the pig men have take up tailoring, I don’t see where you’re going to find new clothes for me, anyway.” 

“Oh, I’ll outfit you myself. I love costumes!” Charlie’s index finger transformed into a long claw, which she used to outline the shape of a jacket in the air. The outline filled with a dark cloth, the same material as her dress. “Tada! Isn’t this so marvelously convenient? I don’t even need to sew!” 

“That’s amazing! How did you do that?”

“Making things out of shadows is easy. I’ll show you later, once I’m done with this.” She examined the suit, tapping her finger to her mouth. “It needs some flair. Tails? No, they’d only get rumpled. Maybe something to match your hair.” She pinched the corners of the suit into horns. “Much better.” She added a pinstriped vest under the suit, a dark gray dress shirt, and a simple pair of pants. “Well, what do you think?”

“It looks very sharp, literally.” I couldn’t have gotten a nicer suit if I’d traveled to London myself. 

“Hmm, it’s still missing something. A bit of color. Perhaps,” she hesitated, “no, that wouldn’t be right. Oh, but it’d look so good! But—” she trailed off.

“What is it?”

“It’s nothing, really, the suit’s fine as-is.”

“Come now, lets hear it.” My curiosity got the better of me, as it always did.

“I was thinking that, well, the suit’s missing a tie.”

“Is that it? Feel free to dress me up to your heart’s content.” I was hoping that at some point, we’d get to the undressing stage, but one step at a time.

“Well, you’re not going to like how I make it.”

“Huh?” My shadowy bonds, which had loosened, now snapped tight around my limbs and torso, anchoring me in place. My head was rudely grabbed and tilted backwards by a claw reaching out of the back of the throne. “Charlie, what’s going on?” I said in rising panic. “Charlie!” She stood unmoved, like she had not heard me at all. Her eyes inverted into their demonic coloration and her smile grew and grew until her face was mostly teeth. One of her claws lengthened into a curved dagger. I was helpless to watch as she brought her claw to my neck and, with a precise twitch, slit my throat.

A spray of red blood poured from the wound, my jugular vein emptying its contents in a torrential flow. Charlie caught the geyser of blood in her hand, which turned into a solid ribbon of red cloth at her touch. I would have loved to have questioned her on her miraculous powers of transmutation, but I was unable to remain consciousness due to my graphic injury. My last memory before blacking out was of the whites of Charlie’s teeth, gleaming in a laughing mouth.


	2. The Sight

When I regained consciousness, I was lying in a sprawled position on the throne, completely alone. I raised a hand to my throat, but it was whole and smooth, without the slightest trace of injury. My vest was also free of blood, and I could have convinced myself that my encounter with Charlie was just another hallucination, except for the garments neatly folded on my lap: a dark suit, on top of which lay a red tie.

Well then. So it had really happened. I sat there, putting together the pieces of my memory. Charlie was woman of mystery: her feminine indecision concealing an an awe-inspiring, terrifying force of darkness. A cravenly part of myself wished to avoid her, for the barrier between her lucid self and her monstrous side was the barest film of webbing. Another part wished to converse with her further, for she knew much about this world, and could help me discover its secrets. And still another part was as fascinated by her beautiful ferocity as a fly dancing around a spider’s web, heedful of the danger yet bespelled by the gleaming dew on its threads.

I bent down and grabbed the clothes she had made for me, holding them to my face and inhaling deeply, to see if I could extract some lingering trace of her rose perfume. Alas, I only sneezed from the dust. I ran my hands over the slick shadow cloth, marveling at its construction. A solid piece of cloth formed the suit, no seams required, an impossibility without magic. I shed my worn clothes and exchanged them for the new suit. Somehow, the cloth could both hold its shape stiffly at the turned corners, yet feel as soft as cotton pajamas. I admired my cufflinks and felt a wave of confidence rise in me, like I could take on an entire pack of hounds and come out laughing on the other side.

There still remained the matter of the blood-red tie. It lay in a heap, like it was only an innocent piece of cloth, not a bewitched fabric created from my own life-blood. I grasped it gingerly between my forefingers, worried that it might bite. The cloth was suffused with a living heat, as if it was freshly-spilled from my body. It was the first warmth I had felt in my time on the throne, for the touch of the shadows was icy cold. I wrapped the cloth around my hand, letting the heat sink into my bones. I regretted that there was not enough of it to make a blanket, although I would have to be completely exsanguinated to provide the material.

The memory of my throat-slitting sent a shudder through my whole body. I’d never felt so helpless before, and so afraid, although I was not a stranger to being held down against my will. The aforementioned baths, for one, and the torments of my classmates, who lorded over me the their growth spurts while I remained a five-foot nothing. It was shameful, to be unable to defend myself. And yet …

Unbidden, my wrapped hand made its way to my groin, stroking the flesh under the cloth. I raised my other hand to my neck and trailed a cold finger where Charlie had slit before. I closed my eyes, imagined Charlie looming over me, her breasts dangling tantalizingly in front of my face. If I could but grasp them and feel their heft in my hands! But no, she wouldn’t stand idle while being molested. She would snatch my hand away, pinning it to the back of the throne, her grip almost crushing the thin bones of my wrist. I could see her smiling widely, devilishly, mocking my clumsy pawing. Perhaps she would take matters into her own hands and place a shadow hand between my legs.

I gave a weak moan and loosed my prick from my pants, stroking it with my cloth-wrapped hand. The touch of the hot fabric drove me mad, my pulse beating through the cloth as if I was holding a rushing artery. I gripped harder, hard enough to hurt, like a claw might to a nub of flesh it disdained. The air filled with my gasps, my voice rising uncontrollably at the pleasure. Would Charlie be amused by my wantonness? Would she stroke me faster to draw more sounds from my mouth? Or would she frown and wrap a hand around my throat, cutting off my moans? I choked myself until my lungs burned and my head pounded.

I was close to spending, so very close. What if the bonds of my throne were to tighten right now, before I could spill over? I could see Charlie snapping her fingers and laughing at my desperate struggles, my hips thrusting into nothing. Would she be merciful? Or would she leave me sobbing on the throne as she walked away?

With a low cry, I spent, pouring my virile essence out in hot waves. Spots covered my vision, and I loosed my hand, gasping for breath. After my soaring pleasure ebated, I was left in a state of pleasant lassitude. I melted in my chair, luxuriating in the afterglow. The only thing missing was a warm body to cuddle.

Alas, all good things must end. I came to my senses and realized I was lying in the waste of my own spending. Fortunately, the shadow fabric absorbed the fluid entirely, but my blood-red tie was spotted with seed. I licked it off as best as I could and then fastened the tie around my neck. The cloth formed a warm collar, seeming to beat in time to my heart.

I admired the contrast of the red fabric with the dark suit. I felt it a shame that I had no mirror nearby, for I dearly wanted to see myself. What had Charlie said about looking like a king? I gripped the arms of the throne and straightened my spine, as if I were seated of my own volition. I closed my eyes, picturing what I must look like.

In my mind’s eye, I saw myself, sitting on the nightmare throne with rather a dour expression. The Wilson was dwarfed by the throne and fit his seat like a child in an armchair, the jagged spines encircling him like thorns. His face had a wan and pale cast which the dark suit only exaggerated. He could be a small and petty tyrant, certainly not the kind of ruler that conquered empires.

My thoughts were disrupted by an itching in my nose. My recent exertion must have stirred up some dust. I wiped my nose on my sleeve, and my double copied me. When I replaced my hand, so did King Wilson. I was beginning to have suspicions that my vision was not pure imagination at all. To test my theory, I flung my button down shirt over the side of the armrests without looking. Then I focused on it with my mind. The cloth landed in a rumpled configuration, one collar up, one collar down. I opened my eyes and confirmed that my vision matched reality. I tested several more times before I was fully convinced that I had developed a telescopic vision.

The discovery of my newfound magical sight delighted me, and I searched for the limits of my power. My focus darted around the landscape surrounding the throne, from tree to twisted tree, past the path my arrival had taken, past a lolling pack of hounds—I shuddered and looked away—up and above to an ordinary world, similar to the ones I had survived in.

I occupied myself for a time by illuminating many mysteries that had eluded me before. I was able to view the inside of a pig hut, for example, although I quickly averted my eyes from the constant swine copulation inside those domiciles. I discovered the mating dance of the tallbirds, a rather ridiculous affair consisting of something like a can-can mixed with a tap dance routine. I even explored the labyrinthine cave systems, which I had not thoroughly investigated before, being too preoccupied with having my revenge upon Maxwell.

While scanning the world, I began to see signs of habitation: picked grass tufts and berry bushes, mined rocks with the nitre scattered about. A wild joy leapt in my heart. Finally, another survivor! If I could invite them to the throne room, what gay conversation we could have! Through the evening gloom, I followed the trail to a campfire, only to have my hopes dashed by the camper: Maxwell, the very devil himself.

The former king was much reduced from his former grandeur. Mud covered his legs up to his knees; his hands were scratched from gathering resources. Still, he seemed well enough, with a science machine humming in the corner and a bubbling crock pot exuding the most tantalizing of vapors. By the light of a campfire, he read from a large tome with the letter “M” engraved on the cover, his mouth sounding out the letters. Shadows escaped into the air every time he turned the page.

Past the light of the fire, I could see a moving shadow, no, it was Charlie. She lay down a tangled mass of twigs out of the illumination radius of the campfire, for what purpose I could not discern, then loudly rustled a bush. The noise caught Maxwell’s attention and he closed his book, tucking it under his arm. Brandishing a torch, he ventured out of the safety of camp, all while calling some name (unfortunately, my telescopic powers did not extend to telephony). He turned his head this way and that, trying to see in the dark but Charlie kept out of his sight, rustling bushes here and there to draw him into her trap. With a fatal misstep, Maxwell’s feet caught on the twigs and he tripped, the torch flying from his hands. Charlie grinned, her demeanor reverting to its feral form. Before Maxwell could reach the safety of his camp, Charlie caught him.

I opened my physical eyes to avoid seeing Maxwell’s gory death. My heart hammered as if I’d been stalked by Charlie herself. She seemed to hold some special malice for Maxwell, for certainly she’d never baited me into leaving the safety of my campfire. I did not have to wonder long about her behavior, for shortly after, Charlie walked up the path, her face contrite. My heart lept at the sight of her, whether in fear or excitement, I could not say. She stood in a column in front of the throne, her hands clasping Maxwell’s book in front of her.

“I wanted to apologize for hurting you before,” She said, “I was so excited about having a model, you see, and I couldn’t resist—” She cut herself off. “I brought you a gift in apology.” She held out the book, which I took. As I ran my fingers down the fore edge, little shadows nipped at my fingers.

“This is Maxwell’s book, isn’t it?”

“Yes, the Codex Umbra, the source of his power over the shadows.”

“You stole it from him, didn't you. I saw you attack him earlier.”

“Oh, yes, well, he was caught in the dark,” she said, dismissively, “and those are the rules of the game. He knows that as well as anyone.”

“But you tricked him into leaving camp, I saw it. That doesn’t seem quite sporting, somehow.”

“I did it for you, Wilson,” she said, bending forward to look at me through her eyelashes. And was it a coincidence that it also forced her breasts to pendulate? “I hope you can forgive me.”

“Uhh—” Her presence was degrading my powers of higher reasoning and threatening a resurgence of the organ which I had just soothed earlier.

“Maxwell will be fine. He only created the world, after all,” she said sarcastically. “I think you can put the Codex Umbra to better use. Why don’t you take a look inside?”

“Ah, yes, of course,” I said, snapping my eyes away from Charlie’s spellbinding frame. I opened the book to a random page, which held a mystical diagram annotated in latin. They seemed to be instructions on how to create a body from shadows and imbue it with a portion of one’s consciousness, creating a shadow puppet. I flipped through the rest of book, reading snippets of arcane mysteries and weird magic. The amount of knowledge contained within dwarfed the scope of the revelation I’d experienced by Maxwell’s hand.

“This is incredible! Charlie, I don’t know how to thank you!” Objections forgotten, my mind buzzed with the possibilities.

“I’m glad you like it. I thought we might use it for your lessons. If, of course, you would still have me as your tutor?”

“Of course. We shall begin immediately!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MAXWELL WAS NOT FINE
> 
> Minor edits have been made for continuity purposes.


	3. Power Trip

Charlie set me the challenge of conjuring a shadow hand, which she assured me would be easy, since I was sitting on a great nexus of shadowy energy. My enthusiasm for my lessons was soon tempered by my utter lack of success. I chanted latin until my throat was hoarse, but I might well have been singing nursery rhymes for all the effect they had. Perhaps I was distracted by Charlie’s majestic striding around the throne, the animation in her gestures as she conjured shadow after shadow by way of example. Or perhaps I was simply a failure at magic.

“Okay, lets try it from the top,” she said with a frustrated sigh. “This time, try stretching out the vowels a teensy bit more.”

“Charlie, this isn’t working,” I said, frustrated myself by my lack of progress. I had before me every advantage: the book, a tutor, the nexus of power, and yet I was unable to grasp the essence of magic. “And I don’t think it’s a matter of vowels. Something’s missing.”

“But I don’t understand what could be wrong,” Charlie slumped, as if my failure was her own. “Max could conjure shadows right and left, even though we were still in the human world. And I don’t think he took any potions or powders beforehand. Or, at least not any magical ones.” The thought that I could be Maxwell’s inferior in any way vexed me. What was his secret?

“Charlie, you can make shadows without even chanting. How do you do it?”

“Hmm.” Charlie tapped her lip. “I wouldn’t say I’m ‘making’ shadows. They exist all around us, it’s just a matter of getting them to do what you want.” She pulled a few shadow wisps into the air by way of demonstration. “At times, they’re docile, like an old mare,” she said, pulling the shadows into smooth ribbons, “but other times, they rear and have to be broken to your will.” Charlie grasped the shadow, which writhed like a snake and vanished.

“So, would you say that reading from this book is the same as ‘asking very very nicely’ for the shadows to do something?” I conjectured.

“Not asking. Commanding. Think of it as if the Queen invited you to tea. She would, of course, respect all the formalities, but you can’t say no to the Queen. You have to draw on that well of power inside of you and _make_ the shadows appear.”

“Do I even have a well of power inside me?” I rubbed my stomach. “I’m usually just full of meatballs.”

“See, that’s the wrong attitude. You have to _know_ that you can command the shadows before they’ll obey you.”

“But how can I ‘know,’” I emphasized with air quotes, “if I’ve never done it before?”

“You gotta fake it until you make it,” she encouraged. “That’s the first lesson of show biz.”

“Okay, here I go.” I took some deep breaths, cleared my throat, and, in my deepest voice, I shouted, “Shadows! Creatures of darkness. As your king, I command you to appear before me—” At this last utterance, my voice cracked. Charlie burst into laughter. I could feel my face heat up by several degrees.

“Charlie! You’re not helping.” I said, in a tone that was definitely not a whine, since I am an adult and have given up childish things. Charlie clutched her sides, bent-over with the force of her laughter.

“Sorry!” she said, between gasps for air. “It’s just, oh, Wilson the Great and Powerful!” And she fell into fresh convulsions. I buried my face in my hands, my shame hot and fresh. It was bad enough to fail at a simple cantrip, worse, to be failing in the presence of a woman I was trying to impress.

“There has to be some other way,” I said. “Maybe I can trick the shadows, somehow?”

Charlie took a deep breath and composed herself.

“I don’t advise it,” she said. “It’ll catch up with you some way or another, and you’ll end up like poor Max.”

“Well, I’m already stuck in the throne,” I huffed, crossing my arms. “What else could they possibly do?”

“Many things,” Charlie said, serious now. “You’ve gotten off lightly compared to what I went through. Torture beyond imagination. An eternity of suffering and pain—”

“Okay, I get it! But the shadows listen to you. When you came to this world, you obtained your powers by some mechanism. Perhaps I could do the same.”

“When I was _dragged_ to this world,” Charlie corrected, “I was plunged in liquid darkness, I ate it, drank it, breathed it until I became one with it,” she stated, a hard look in her eyes. “It was very unpleasant. I would be drowning still if I hadn’t stumbled across Max’s little realm.”

“True, I’d rather not drown in shadows.” I tapped my lip. “Would consuming just a little work?”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Charlie still seemed doubtful. “I recall your nerves being unsettled just by being around some corrupted flowers.”

“It’s the only idea I have. I have to try it, for science! Besides, I have you to watch over me.”

“Okay, fine, if you insist. Hold out your hand.” Charlie nicked her wrist and squeezed out a quarter-sized drop of a translucent substance I recognized as nightmare fuel. It gathered into a gelatinous ball in my palm, seeming to wobble of its own accord.

“Bottoms up.” And, before my courage failed me, I lifted the nightmare fuel to my mouth and swallowed. The fuel had no taste that I could define, but every cell in my body recoiled from its corrupt presence. I could feel its progress down my esophagus by the cold shudder it provoked. When the fuel hit my stomach, a wave of nausea struck me. I gagged, my body trying violently to repel the noxious substance.

“Wilson, are you alright?” asked Charlie. I nodded, my hands clamped over my mouth to keep the nightmare fuel from being expelled.

Eventually, the nausea receded, but my suffering had only just begun. Phantasms appeared in the corner of my visions, hallucinations just like the ones caused by foregoing sleep. I whipped my head to the side, trying to catch them in my vision, but their definite form eluded me. My ears filled with a low susurrus, rising to a whispered chorus of unintelligible voices.

“Wilson, what is it? Speak to me?” Charlie’s face hovered in front of my own, her form blurring before my eyes.

“Somethings’s here. It's all around us, I can hear it!” I closed my eyes, pressing my hands to my ears, but the sound penetrated my aural shield as if it was being piped directly into my brain.

“Wilson, you have to focus—” Charlie’s voice was drowned out by the maddening whispers. They spoke like a crowd of people, some young, some old, some male, some female, and some with voices distorted so heavily that I could not guess at an identity. I could discern intelligible phrases:

“—mmm delicious Wilson tears—”

“—help i cant find the fire—”

“—only the dnakst of maymays—”

“—just me, or is the update buggy—”

“—WE WANT PVP—”

“Shut up!” I shouted. For a moment, I experienced glorious, deafening silence. Then the voices began again, more demanding, battering me like a stormy ocean’s waves.

“UPDATE! MORE CONTENT!” roared the chorus.

“What do you want from me!” I shouted.

“—already killed the deerclops, like, ten times, give me a real challenge—”

“—who’s Charlie—”

“—can’t believe how much grass I waste on these fake gates—”

“—really cool if there was a thirst mechanic—”

“—hats!—”

The maelstrom of demands battered my psyche until I could no longer distinguish my thoughts from theirs. I clung to sanity like a shipwrecked sailor to a broken spar, each wave threatening to loose me into the merciless sea. Oh, how foolish I was to think that I could take on the shadows!

Eventually, I noticed that the voices grew softer and more distant, the storm subsiding to a shower and then a calm. I could think again, although their whispering still touched the inside of my skull. When I came to, I was tightly bound to my throne, my limbs sore with thrashing, my body drenched with sweat. I groaned, and Charlie undid my bounds, running a cool hand through my sweat-soaked locks. I sobbed in her embrace, my body weak as a newborn lamb.

“Oh God, what was that?” I croaked. “The voices—so many of them—”

“You heard Them.” She spoke that word with finality, like it was a title. “They who control the fate of this world and its inhabitants. We exist to amuse them, like pieces in a game of chess.”

“But I’m not a pawn anymore. I’m the king, you said so yourself!” I cried in desperation.

“I’m afraid even the king is only another game piece. And the burden on your shoulders is greater now than ever before. Before, you only had yourself to worry about, but now the fate of the kingdom is in your hands.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It’s the king’s job to keep Them entertained by adding new features to the world, animals, monsters, challenges and the like. That’s the reason They grant the king powers over the world to begin with.”

“Maxwell said that he created this world and everything in it. I always thought he was just a sadistic egomaniac, but you’re saying the only reason he made this world was because of Them?”

“Not the only reason, but yes. Pain is very entertaining to Them.”

“And the giant Maxwell statues?”

“Er, those were all Max’s idea. He always did have a big head.”

“Okay, I suppose he’s just an egomaniac then.” I clasped my hands together. “Let's say I don’t want to create horrible monsters that hurt people. What happens then?”

“They won’t be happy with that. They’ll take it out on you first. They’ll make such a racket that you won’t be able to hear your own thoughts. And they’ll do worse if you keep ignoring them. I saw Maxy begging, and he’s the kind of guy who’d rather skip a meal than go without his dry-cleaning.” Charlie’s hand tightened in my hair until it hurt. I rather enjoyed that though.

“And what after that?” I asked, inquiring after the yawning abyss.

“I don’t know. What do you do with games that are no longer amusing?”

“Shove them in the attic for them to rot in peace?”

“Whatever it is, I’d rather not find out.” I fell silent, digesting the information while Charlie stroked my hair. Even as we sat in peace, I could hear the whispering of Them in the back of my mind, making their demands heard. As much as I wanted to bask in the closeness of Charlie’s presence, I had real work to do.

“I’d better keep at my lessons, then,” I said, regretfully pulling out of Charlie’s embrace. I looked for the Codex Umbra, which had been kicked several feet away by my violent thrashing. I reached for it, only to be rudely reminded of my shadow bonds.

“Damn you, shadows!” I shouted. “I am your king and if you want to keep existing, you’ll listen to me!”  My outburst, far from being a puff of hot air, echoed unnervingly in the throne room. Shadows coalesced under the book and formed into a hand on a spindly arm. The shadow hand picked up the book and brought it to me.

“Was that me?” I cried, astonished. “Rise!” I commanded, and the shadow hand stretched up. “Fall! Shake!” I grasped the shadow hand with my own, pumping it vigorously. “I did it! The experiment was successful!” I performed a jig of joy in my chair. “Charlie, did you see that?”

“Excellent! You’re not completely hopeless after all.” She clapped her hands together. “Now it’s time to get serious. I think the next lesson should be shadow puppets …”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like how I invented a system of magic that depends on how dom you are. Poor Wilson.
> 
> If you enjoyed, leave a comment! Or, you can find me on tumblr @ mariachiMushroom.

**Author's Note:**

> There have been a lot of Maxwell/Wilson fics, but not so much Charlie/Wilson, despite the inherent sexual potential of Wilson being bound to the throne. Charlie's got this weird Jekyll and Hyde thing going on which gives me an excuse to exercise my sadistic impulses. I'm aiming for a Maxwell/Wilson/Charlie endgame, if I finish this fic before I lose interest in the fandom.
> 
> On a lighter note, I've been reading old-timey erotica to get the words right for this fic, and man, they use some really unsexy language. I couldn't stop laughing at the word "bubbies" used to describe breasts. Let me know if you think it's too distracting.


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